Of Hearts & Minds
by Wickedgal08
Summary: Spoilers for season 8 - one-shot. Damon goes down a dark road, and so his friends get a little creative - and desperate - in their methods of trying to bring him back. Along the way they understand the true damage that has been done, the memories he's really lost, and realise the biggest battle they face is getting him to remember why he needs to keep fighting.


**Of Hearts & Minds**

Summary: one-shot. Spoilers for season 8. How do you begin to remember you loved someone, when you don't even remember they existed to begin with? Damon's friends try and reassemble the broken pieces of Damon, and try to convince him to fight for his life. Spoilers for season 8, but I've kind of put my own twist on it. If you haven't watched season 8 but want to read, all you need to know is Damon is dark and under the influence of an evil siren called Sybil, who has manipulated his memories and erased Elena out of his mind. Sort of explained in the fic anyway. Enjoy.

...

There was something slightly off about the view in front of him, but Damon couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Mystic Falls usually inspired nothing but contempt inside his heart, but something felt different, and this had all started on a quiet patch of road, not quite in the middle of nowhere but near enough. There was something achingly beautiful about the way the road swirled off out of sight and into an unknown future. It looked like the kind of road people met on before some big adventure swept them away.

He suddenly frowned at the end of this train of thought.

He never had these type of thoughts, the poetic kind that you found slapped in Nicholas Sparks novels, the ones that fed the movie industry and as a result spawned a generation of nauseatingly romantic hipsters, people that even he wouldn't snack on for fear of catching some of their new-age love-thy-neighbour talk.

Something in this picture was missing however, and just as Damon was about to ponder this, a silky smooth voice broke the eerie silence into pieces.

"This looks familiar right? Like you've been here before?"

He whirled around.

A girl of about eighteen, maybe nineteen years, stood boldly in front of him, her arms folded as she looked him up and down, her glance speculative, and perhaps a little forlorn, although that may just have been his imagination.

"Bonnie Bennett, what the hell are you doing inside my head?" he asked, a soft growl curling the fringes of his voice.

The art of getting into people's head was something he'd so finely tuned over the years that he'd learned to recognise it the moment his own head had been broken into like a vault. He wasn't sure of the motive, but he was sure it had nothing to do with getting to know him better.

A dark smile graced his lips.

 _She knows me damn well enough already,_ he thought. _I'm the kind of monster that other monsters warn each other about._

"What's wrong with this picture?" Bonnie asked, ignoring the question.

"Besides you being here, not a damn thing," he growled. "I could just kill you, you know. I wouldn't bat an eyelid. You mean nothing."

"Cool." Bonnie didn't flinch. "You're currently away from civilisation for the foreseeable future, locked up with chains of vervain wrapped around your pretty little neck, and currently starving to the point of dessication, but if you want to give killing me a go, have at it."

Another growl rolled off his lips.

"Why am I here?"

"Simple. I asked you a question, and I'm not leaving until I get the right answer. So... I'll ask you again, what's wrong with this picture?"

To humour her - and because he was a little damn curious - Damon perused the road. Nothing stood out to him. There was a little chill in the air, but the cold had never been an issue with him, being a vampire and all. He looked at the surrounding trees, the odd car that rumbled almost silently past in the distance, but there was nothing out of the ordinary.

"Nothing. It's just a road." He narrowed his eyes. "Maybe you should answer your own damn question, otherwise this game of Twenty Questions could turn into a bloody version of Twister." He smirked. "It's the best game to play when you have sorority girls, because they just..."

"Alright, I get it!" Bonnie looked disappointed by his answer. "I'll try a different question." She breathed in and out slowly, as if trying to summon her courage. "You were on this road a few years back, do you remember that?"

"Right before I had a cheerful little reunion with my baby bro." Damon could at least answer that question. "Good times."

"And who were you out here with?"

Damon paused, not sure where she was going with this.

"I was alone," he said, remarkably cautious for an infamously reckless vampire. "Why?"

"What's wrong with this picture?" Bonnie repeated, her voice ranging from strong and confident, to soft and pleading. It made no sense.

"Nothing's wrong. Stop asking me that," Damon snapped.

Bonnie exhaled. "Okay, new line of questioning. What do you know about a girl called Elena Gilbert?"

She looked at him keenly, but the name swept over his head like a wave.

"Wasn't she the girl who died in the Wickery Bridge accident, a couple of years back?" He shrugged, impassive. "Never knew her." He smirked. "Shame the poor thing never got to meet all this." He gestured to himself, knowing he was being cocky past the point of reason, knowing he was being insensitive and it was winding her up. "Why? Am I supposed to know her?"

"No," Bonnie replied curtly, but it wasn't a dismissive remark.

It felt more like she was testing the waters on the subject, but what she was trying to accomplish here was beyond him. He usually could figure girls out, but Bonnie was an enigma; she was all hard edges and straight lines, and she wasn't going to be the kind of girl who relinquished information easily.

He knew all of this already, had known this for some years, and yet tonight it felt like he was meeting her for the first time, and maybe that was why every damn hair on his body felt like it was on fire.

It wasn't attraction, although she was a beautiful girl, but something inside him screamed of a connection that went beyond what he'd already known. Shutting down his humanity hadn't robbed him of memories - not as far as he was aware - and the fact he was under the influence of Sybil again should've had no impact on his relationships, and yet...

And yet there lingered in the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fragment inside his broken mind the tiniest of doubts that something about this picture looked wrong.

"I'm assuming if you're creeping in my head like a stalker, it's because I've been even more horrific than usual, and you're resorting to drastic measures to get me to change," he remarked, with his usual level of sarcasm.

"Got it in one, Damon." Bonnie seized upon this remark with a sudden and surprising ferocity. "But ask yourself this: why would we even bother to change you? I mean, from what I've learned of you over the years, you have a list as long as the clock tower of people you've killed or hurt, most without remorse. Why would we even bother to change a psychopath who doesn't have anybody to back his corner?" She mirrored his smirk, and it was unsettling to say the least. "Why would we go to all this trouble for you?"

Damon glared at her. "You got something to say, Bonnie, just say it!"

"My point is Damon, you're lost right now. You've got a psycho bitch messing you around in every possible way, and you've never stopped to wonder why we don't just let her have you? If you're such the _monster_ you claim to be, why are you letting me talk to you instead of just denying me all access, as I'm sure you know you have the power to do?"

"Clearly, I'm starved off of blood," he snarled. "You've said it yourself I'm weak and desiccating in a cell somewhere. You hitchhiked into my brain like it was easier than taking candy from a baby. Tell me, Bon-Bon... at what point in your life did you hop from the Morality Lane to the Devil-May-Care Highway? I might've liked you more had I known you had this side of you."

There was that obnoxious smirk again.

Bonnie fought herself from punching it clean off his face.

"The thing is Damon, I made that all up," she said, smiling flatly. "Actually, I'm invading your safe space. Sybil is currently being distracted, so I'm here giving you a mental autopsy. For some reason, you keep coming back to this place, and while I know the reason why, I'm curious as to why this road is particularly important to you."

She was infuriating, but Damon wasn't going to bite.

"I could realistically break out of here anytime I want then? Kind of a risky move, don't you think?" he taunted.

"And yet you're still here."

"Not for much longer."

"Then go."

"I will."

"Fine."

They glared at each other, but remained frozen in place, neither wanting to break out of this weird, electric stalemate they'd locked themselves into.

In an attempt to call her bluff, he made a motion like he was going to retreat but she interrupted before he could even so much as take a step away.

"You're still here because you know something's missing. You come to this place because it's a memory that keeps you grounded and safe, only this time it feels different. Something's changed, and you can't figure out why. You're here because despite the fact you've switched everything off, there's still a part of you fighting, only you're no longer sure what you're fighting for. Tell me if I'm getting close to the truth."

" _Back off,"_ Damon snarled, zooming towards her until they were only a breath apart. "Even in my head, I can still rip your pretty little throat out."

To his surprise, she didn't flinch at the threat.

"I've been threatened by you so many times, Damon, that it's getting old. Like, I'd feel more threatened if you reached out and hugged me." She turned around and started walking, pausing at the edge of the sidewalk. "This night changed a lot of things for a lot of people." She then met his heated gaze. "Until you figure out why, until you _remember,_ all revisiting this place is gonna do is inflate that loneliness you try so desperately to hide."

She was gone in a blink.

And she'd left behind a restless storm in the deepest recesses of Damon's mind.

*x*x*

Damon walked for what felt like miles, and yet it only seemed to show the same road. It was like he'd been glued to a treadmill, moving but only in the one direction, with the same scenery surrounding him.

Then it was like a switch had been flicked, because suddenly the scene changed, and the blacks and greys of the midnight stretch of road had evolved into the whites and silvers of the Lockwood estate. He was standing in the heart of pretension, with sweeping staircases, unnecessarily large paintings, and gaping arches making up his surroundings.

He'd always hated the Lockwoods, not because of who they were but who they'd pretended to be. Carol had hidden behind a layer of snobbery and contempt for anyone but the Founding Families, yet she was deceivingly tender, particularly towards her son, Tyler. Then you had Richard Lockwood, who'd portrayed himself as a charming, family man, only to have ended up carrying the werewolf gene, a literal wolf in sheep's clothing. Whilst Mason hadn't been caught up the politics of the Lockwood family, he'd been the same; pretending to be the friendly boy-next-door only to end up turning out to be the boy-next-door's pet dog.

Tyler was the only one then who had never tried to hide who he was. Angry, stubborn, and undeniably arrogant at times though he might've been, at least he'd never pretended to be the poster child for perfection.

Damon wasn't sure why his thoughts were going down this particular road, but for some reason he felt a flood of something... _warm_ stirring inside him. Affection, possibly? It was hard to say. It was odd though, because he associated nothing good with this place. He just remembered it had held people he'd barely tolerated - or in Mason's case, openly despised.

Suddenly, a glimmer of emerald green caught his eye, and he turned, stunned to say the least at seeing Caroline at the top of the stairs, wearing the same dress she'd worn for the Miss Mystic Falls event. She appraised him coolly, as she always did, always hovering the line between contempt and indifference when it came to interacting with him.

"Well, I didn't expect to find you here," he said coolly, "although you do tend to be in places where you're not wanted, so I shouldn't be so surprised."

He would say one thing for Caroline Forbes: she no longer flinched at the patronising and demeaning comments he would fling at her.

For a bizarre reason, the idea she might be used to him treating her that way made his stomach turn.

Brushing off the feeling, Damon also, like her, found an expression that settled between dislike and indifference.

"I'm not here because of you. I'm here because of your brother," Caroline said. "And also my best friend."

"I've had the lecture from Bonnie, so you can save your pep talk for someone who cares."

"Not that best friend," Caroline snapped, but she instantly changed the subject before he could pry any further. "I'm here because for some insane reason, your brother believes we can snap you out of her hold."

Damon decided his best card here was playing dumb. "Whose hold?"

She rolled her eyes. "Sybil's."

"Are you really accusing me of being whipped, Blondie? Really?"

"Oh, you were whipped long before Sybil got her nasty little bitch claws in you," Caroline said, suddenly cheerful. "Do you like the dress?"

Damon was thrown by the question. "What?"

"Simple question: do you like the dress?"

"No. Why the hell are you asking?" he growled.

"Just wondering if you'd prefer this in, say, _blue_?" The question was innocent, yet Caroline widening her eyes ever so slightly had him believing this was a loaded question and that he should tread carefully with his next words.

He wasn't fond of Caroline at all, but he was very much aware that for all the physical damage he could throw on her, she could ruin his life in a million other, more creative ways.

"The colour of the dress doesn't sway my opinion one way or another," he stated flatly, but in the very edges of his vision, in another part of his mind, he saw a flash of blue, and a glimpse of brown curls. It disappeared almost instantly, but all the same it left him uneasy, as if he'd been standing on a previously straight and narrow path, and all of a sudden it bent sharply in a direction he'd not expected, with no clear indication as to where it led.

Caroline began walking down the stairs, her stride full of purpose, keeping an eye on him all the way. He folded his arms, visibly unimpressed, and waited until she had reached him until he began to speak again.

"Look, I'm not sure what you and Bon-Bon think you can accomplish with all this trip-down-memory-lane business, but you can stop it. I have a woman waiting for me, and she'll be pissed-to-hell if you keep me from her."

Caroline tilted her head to one side, curious. "Do you love this woman?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"I'm just curious. You see, I think despite you saying you need to get back to Sybil, I don't actually think you're in any hurry to, otherwise you would've just banished me away because, even though I'm in your head, you still have control." Her harsh gaze softened a fraction. "We're not like her. You can leave at any moment."

"Good. I'll leave then."

"Go on then."

Why the _hell_ was he having the exact same argument with Caroline and Bonnie? More importantly, why couldn't he just wish himself away?

Apparently, Caroline had the answer to that as well.

"You're hesitating because this woman is not anything to you. You despise the control she has over you, and you're afraid, even if you have your humanity switch off." Caroline smiled, like she had the biggest secret hovering on the edge of her lips. He hated that smile. "You see, Damon, despite the humanity switch supposedly robbing you of all emotion, I don't think that's what it does. I think it robs you of empathy, and of pain, but not much else. When mine was off, it didn't stop me feeling worried that somebody would come and find a reason for me to switch it all back on, thus feeling all the pain of my mom's death all over again. It didn't stop me feeling confident, or cocky, or excited when I went on my murder spree." She winced as she spoke. "Emotions are tied to every action we make, good or bad, and nothing, not even a handy vampire switch, can fully turn them off. At best, we can mute them, but they're still there."

"Just stop, Caroline!" he yelled, getting right in her face. "Whatever you're doing, _stop_!"

"You want to know why I've brought you here? Do you want to know why this moment is significant?" She brought herself to his height, suddenly gloriously powerful. "This was the moment you knew you were in love, and it was a love unlike any other you've ever felt."

He recoiled, as if she'd slapped him.

"The only person I loved was Katherine, and look how that panned out," he snarled.

"And why did that break down?"

"Because she told me she never loved me. That it had always been _Stefan_." His lips pulled into his familiar sneer. "Oh Saint Stefan... he has had more women love him than he has had acceptable hairstyles."

"Name one woman who has loved Stefan besides Katherine and me," Caroline challenged. "I dare you."

"I dunno. But he's done his fair share of travelling, so it's just a guess he's had women fawn over him like he's a store with an end-of-business sale sign on it."

"No. This goes beyond Katherine, Damon. Unless there was someone before Katherine that came between you, there's bitterness in that statement that goes beyond just one woman." Caroline looked around, and then changed tactic much like Bonnie had.

It was frustrating how they were trying to get him to talk about something he couldn't remember, this mystery girl who he'd fallen for, supposedly at the Miss Mystic Falls event, but he'd never met anyone there. He'd just gone there because he was pissed at the world, and bored, and that never usually spelled a good time.

Well, not for the rest of the world anyway.

Usually, that combination for him resulted in a pretty girl, and a good meal; these were often one and the same.

"You remember this day, right?" Caroline said, taking charge once more. "What were you even doing here?"

"Pissing off Stefan, of course. Why do you even need to ask?"

A sharp growl fled Caroline's lips, much to his amusement.

 _She is so easy to wind up,_ he thought to himself. _It's her one and only good quality._

"But why was Stefan here?" she persisted. "I mean, despite this being a Founder's party, like every other event here, there's no actual obligation for any founding families to attend, except maybe the families of those who are participating in the pageant side of things."

This threw Damon.

Why _had_ Stefan been at this lame ass event?

I mean, sure, his brother had retained the title of Mr Lame since 1864, but there would've been no point him attending this unless...

Unless his brother had dated someone before Caroline. This was entirely plausible, given he knew his brother hadn't dated Caroline until a few years ago, and then something had caused his pain-in-the-ass brother to think she was better off without him, and it wasn't until recently that they'd finally got back on track, getting engaged of all things, which for some reason pissed him off on another level.

It was almost like he was... jealous.

That couldn't be right, could it? He had briefly dated Caroline, if you could even call it dating. He'd used and abused the poor girl, calling her shallow and stupid, amongst other wicked crimes. So what would make him jealous of his brother's newfound happiness?

This line of thinking had caused a twinge of something to flutter inside him, and he'd been down this road before to know what it was.

Humanity.

Even with his switch off, Damon hated the fact there were gaps in his memories, little trivial questions that somehow built up to something bigger. Mentally, he hovered around his emotion switch, hesitating over whether it was the right move to turn it back on or not. If Sybil knew he'd turned it back on...

There would be literally Hell to pay.

It wasn't worth it.

Whatever, or whoever, he was missing, they weren't worth paying the price of eternal damnation for.

With a cold smile directed at a slowly despairing Caroline - who at this point had cottoned on to the fact she'd almost got through to him and failed - he did what he should've done the moment he realised Stefan's annoying friends had entered his subconscious: he banished them from his mind.

*x*x*

Whatever trick he was under, whatever spell was being woven to allow people access to his mind and memories, it apparently wasn't done with him.

Damon suddenly found himself in the bar of the Mystic Grill. Like always, it was devoid of atmosphere, but the explanation for this on this occasion happened to be because it was devoid of people. He perked up at the idea of free booze without having to buy or compel his way out of unwanted attention.

He strode over to the bar, cursing his preemptive optimism, as Alaric suddenly appeared on the other side of the bar, a bottle of bourbon at the ready.

"Oh," was all Damon could think to say.

Alaric had been demonstratively cooler towards Damon for a while now, and he knew it was because of his flip to the dark side. Not that he cared what he thought about him, but try as he might, Damon couldn't recall how they'd ever become friends. A vampire hunter and a vampire were as likely to become friends as a fish was likely to befriend a bear.

Alaric swiftly poured them both a drink but left the bottle on the bar, his glance speculative, almost as if he was trying to predict the rainstorm of abuse he was about to receive in order to counter it.

"You look pensive," he said, gruffly.

"Pensive implies emotion..."

"And you're not doing emotions right now," Alaric finished. "Right. Got ya."

Damon eyed him suspiciously.

"You not got a lecture up your sleeve in order to make me see the error of my ways, O Ghost of Christmas Future?"

"You're comparing me to the third, and undeniably the creepiest, ghost in that story?"

"Well, you are the third spirit I've encountered," Damon smirked. "You've got a lot of pressure on you to say the right words to magic me back to normal."

"Oh you've always been an ass," Alaric said, almost bitterly to Damon's surprise, who'd expected, despite their current frostiness, to at least have attempted to kindle some nostalgia so that he demonstrated he cared. "I know you think I'm pissed at you for hanging off the heels of a siren, but it goes beyond that."

"You are not still harping on about Isobel are you?" Damon's eyebrows launched to new heights. "Thought that was all water under the bridge?"

"Yes, but that will always be a dick move, even if she did turn out to be an utter bitch." Alaric pinched the ridge of his nose, visibly trying to reign in patience.

 _This is new,_ Damon mused, looking at Alaric through new eyes. _I remember we had a good thing going, and I remember feeling like shit when he died, and as far as I'm aware I haven't turned anymore of his girlfriends, so why are we like this?_

 _More importantly, why do I care?_

In a rare moment of total honesty, Damon decided to bite the bullet and spill his guts about something that had been bugging him all evening.

"D'you ever feel like you're in over your head? 'Cause right now, I'm fighting to keep Sybil happy, and well fed, but at the same time I'm wondering why my so-called friends are bothering to save me. I get my brother, who has a hero complex the size of New York, feels like he needs to save me, but then I have all these other people - Bonnie, you, even Caroline - trying to make me go down memory lane, and what for? When I come out of this magical coma, I'm still gonna do shitty things, and I'm not gonna feel a thing about it."

"It's interesting that you say that, Damon," Alaric said, the hostility on his face replaced by genuine concern. "Because I've been racking my brain to try and understand exactly what Sybil has really done to you, and I think I see it. She's not just caused you to flip your humanity switch, she's also taken away every reason you have for turning it back on." He sighed heavily. "And here I was thinking it might be easier to be pissed at you when you're like this."

"Why are you pissed at me, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Let me answer your question with another question, for the purpose of hopefully actually giving you the answer you need: do you remember putting yourself into a coffin for three years?"

Damon nodded. "Of course. I did it because the world was better off without me."

"Right, except you're not that selfless, Damon. You have your moments, don't get me wrong, but you tend to do these big, supposedly meaningful gestures when you're at your lowest, or when you've suffered a substantial loss. You put your life on the line partly because you believe it'll work, but there's also a part of you that kind of gives up, and this is just an easy out. That is why I'm pissed at you, because out of all the things you are, I never pegged you to be a quitter." Alaric gave another sigh before adding, "And I think I gave you the impression the reason I was pissed at you was because you came back and upended all our lives again. I can't deny those three years were the easiest I've had in a long time, and I didn't have to worry that my daughters would get caught in the crossfire, so maybe to an extent that is still true. But you're my friend, Damon, and it kind of sucked that your goodbye came in a letter because that to me is the coward's way out."

A heavy silence between them, during which the bottle they'd been constantly refilling their glasses with had emptied, causing Alaric to reach for a new one.

"I'm not supposed to be feeling any of this," Damon growled, crushing the glass in his hand until it shattered. "My humanity is off, I shouldn't give a damn about what you're saying. I _can't_ give a damn."

"Why not? Damon... what hold does she have over you?"

"She has my future. And it features a pit of fire and a whole world of pain I just can't put myself through," Damon murmured. "And it's the most selfish I've ever been because I'd rather do Sybil's bidding, at the cost of every relationship I've ever had, than face what she has in store for me." He looked up, and Alaric saw how truly haunted he looked, as if everything, not just Elena, had been wiped away from him, leaving behind a shell of a man. "I would take a thousand prison worlds over what hell she can deliver me to."

Nodding to himself, as if this confirmed a theory he'd been sitting on, Alaric decided to broach one final question to see what reaction he could pull from him.

"Damon, what do you remember of Elena Gilbert?"

Damon shook his head. "Bonnie asked me the same thing. She was a girl who died in an accident off of Wickery Bridge alongside her parents."

"Right." Alaric nodded again. "But you remember Jenna right, and Jeremy Gilbert?"

Damon nodded.

"How did you meet them?"

This gave Damon serious pause for thought. He flicked through his memories with only a general idea of how far back he was searching for.

"I was at their house," he said slowly. "I invited myself over for dinner."

"But how did you meet them?"

"I'm assuming I met them through one of those pretentious Founding Family events."

"You say _assume_ like you don't really remember," Alaric pushed. "There must've been a reason you went over. I know you, Damon. You avoid people like Jeremy like the plague, and even women like Jenna tend to get on your nerves unless they're fawning over how good looking you are."

"I remember her saying I was hot to someone." Damon had never concentrated so hard to remember a single memory before; usually, he could recall any memory, not matter how long ago. "And she said I was an ass." The memory in question made him smile, and he could almost picture the girl who said it - for some reason, she was a brunette in his mind - but she had her back to him, and she was kind of fuzzy as well for some reason...

"Who, Jenna?"

"No. Someone else." _This was frustrating._

"Who?"

"I don't remember."

"Think, damn it, think!"

"WHY IS THIS SO DAMN IMPORTANT?" Damon suddenly bellowed, rising to his feet, glaring at Alaric with all the hatred he could muster. "WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES THIS _ONE_ MEMORY MAKE IN THE GRAND FUCKING SCHEME OF EVERYTHING?"

He hated the pitiful look Alaric threw him then.

"It's not one memory, Damon. It's one girl," he said, solemnly. "And she makes all the difference in the world."

This time, he was the one to walk away, leaving Damon staring at him, suddenly bewildered.

This time he knew full well his humanity switch had been flipped back on, and these damn idiots he called his friends had someone found a way to tape it there until he remembered some vital piece of his past.

*x*x*

When Damon found the sheer strength to walk out of the Grill, he found himself walking through a kaleidoscope of memories that meant nothing to him. One moment, he was in the pouring rain, on a dock in the middle of nowhere, watching a meteor shower, feeling like something heavy was crushing his chest, the next he was on the top of the clock tower, perusing the quiet world below, constantly looking to the side of him, his fingers clenching and unclenching around pure air.

He knew what was so unsettling about all these memories.

There was such a strong - yet ironically absent - presence within them, a presence he couldn't see, feel, touch or otherwise remember, that it felt painful to relive them only having a bland version of what they otherwise were.

He couldn't well tell the others that he knew someone was missing, that their absence screamed so loudly into his void heart that he genuinely wanted nothing more than to take his ring off and walk into blissful oblivion, because for them to know that would mean they knew he was still worth saving, and he wasn't.

It would be easier, in more than ways than one, for him to simply not be around.

It wasn't him being suicidal or anything, because he actually loved life and all its pleasures, but sometimes Damon did contemplate the idea of leaving the world. Sometimes he would play with the ring on his finger, toy with the idea of taking it off and hurling it across a great distance so he wasn't immediately tempted to retrieve it, but something kept him from doing so every single time.

Or maybe it was more of a some _one._

When he tried to retreat in his own mind - outside of what he was already doing now - Damon would always go to the same space, but it would be a completely different scenario to what he'd imagined. He would go to that road again, he would lie flat down, and then he would hear the noise of an accident somewhere in the distance, but before he could be pulled towards it, there she would stand, right in front of him, her posture reading innocence, but her eyes bleeding murder. He had had no recollection of meeting Sybil before the events that had led him here, and she didn't fit into the pretty little picture he'd painted for himself either, so it had to be a manipulation of some sort. This was the conclusion he was slowly coming to.

What made the image even more disturbing is that they would then walk off together, towards the accident, and they would see three bodies being pulled out of the river, along the bridge, and Sherriff Forbes would break down as she reported the casualties: Miranda, Grayson... and Elena Gilbert. Each and every time she read out Elena's name, something in his chest clenched, but he couldn't say why, and with almost a sickening casualty, Sybil would comment on the accident, asking with deceiving innocence, whether he knew Elena.

His reply always tasted like ash on his tongue, as he denied all knowledge of her.

Suddenly, this perfect sanctuary felt like it was a house of cards: built upon nothing but air with no sturdy foundation, and with the ability to fall apart with just one breath.

Eventually, Damon arrived back at the Salvatore Boarding house, specifically in front of the fire, although he was beginning to suspect this wasn't his chosen destination. How could he, after all, return to a place which housed nothing but loneliness? Even with his brother here, something was lacking; a certain life, a certain type of energy that you just didn't get with an all male household.

Damon briefly wondered if it was even an all male household anymore, considering his brother's recent engagement.

Now who'd have seen _that_ coming?

"You're unusually deep in thought considering you don't have a drink in your hand," came an all too familiar voice, the last ghost, surely, on this one way express to Redemption Town.

Damon didn't bother turning to greet his brother; over the years, they'd had their share of dramatic entrances, and this was one ranked very poorly on the list.

"I was wondering when you would show up," he murmured, watching the flames dance, his entire weight leaning against the top of the fireplace, his stare broody and intense.

He seemed to have adopted the classic Stefan pose, complete with broody stare and solemn tone. All that was missing was the hero hair.

"You know we're only doing all of this because we care about you." And cue the onslaught of clichéd sentiments associated with any sort of intervention. Damon felt the urge to vomit curdle inside his stomach. "We also were running out of options. Consider this Desperation Point."

Damon finally turned. "Funny, I thought Desperation Point would've involved a stake through my heart." He shrugged, trying and failing to look indifferent. "At least, that's how things would've gone down had this been the other way round."

Stefan frowned. "You would've really considered staking me through the heart as a means of saving me?"

"You sound shocked, like that method of action doesn't scream Damon all over it." Damon's lips curled into a lazy smile. "Brother or no brother, when all else fails, I would've driven that stake through your heart, but not out of pity, or self-preservation or anything else. I would've done it because you would've asked me to, because you know I do things the right way, and the right way rarely ends up in a happy ever after for everyone." He finally went to pour himself a drink. "I would've done it, Stefan, because if things had gone the other way, Sybil would've made you become the Ripper, and we all know the Ripper doesn't care about whether or not he has a fiancée in the wings, or if there are children involved." Damon's eyes flickered away momentarily, mostly to avoid seeing his brother's pained look at the reminder of his current situation. "I've told you before, Stefan, that I'd rather do things the right way and have people hate me for it, than be like you and worry about what people might think afterwards."

"And do you remember when you said that, Damon?"

Damon hesitated for a moment. "It was after Klaus arrived into town, wasn't it? No... it might've been Elijah. Or both. I can't recall which Original brother was the bigger pain in the ass at the time."

Stefan nodded, as if he'd confirmed something he'd already been thinking.

"You know, Damon, do you ever wonder why even though we may still be at odds at times, we're able to have a civil conversation without us fighting? How we're able to discuss the past, and our flaws, without hitting each other, or attempting to kill one another? Isn't it curious that after all this time, we've got to this point, and even though you've gone down a really dark road I'm worried you'll never come back from, the idea of killing you is the farthest thing from my mind?"

"Now you come to mention it, it is a little strange," Damon confessed. "But that's the beauty of eternity: we've got plenty of time to relapse."

He took an unnecessarily large gulp of Bourbon.

Stefan shook his head and collapsed into a seat, looking, for the first time, like the physical embodiment of his age.

 _Must be a hard job,_ Damon mused, _trying to be your older brother's keeper. It should be the other way round._

He felt a flicker of something which might've been guilt had he not known better as he tried to recall all the ways he'd looked out for Stefan over the years. There were some moments, but far fewer than a big brother should've actually held to his name.

"Is this it then?" he asked, trying to break the silence. "Is this your big speech? Your epic Save-Damon-Before-He-Goes-Down-In-Flames-Once-And-For-All moment? I hate to be the one to criticise, but I'm not so sure your heart is in it this time, little brother."

For all the jokes he'd made about the various frown lines on Stefan's face, this time Damon could see there were many more since last he'd checked, and he knew each of them would be attributed to stopping his dark brother from doing unspeakably dark things. He wanted to tell him it wasn't his job to look out for him, that it wasn't his responsibility to save his neck every time he was reckless, or impulsive, or acting out because something hadn't gone his way. What would be the point though? They'd sung this song before, and neither of them learned their lesson. Damon would always be the one to screw up, and Stefan would always be the one to try and fix the problem.

If Stefan was in Ripper mode, or just genuinely being Klaus's little bitch, the roles would reverse, but generally as a rule they each had their part to play in this little charade they called life. Sometimes Damon believed they were doomed to do nothing else but hound each other, for better or for worse.

 _But what if you could have more?_ a nasty little voice in the back of his mind whispered.

 _I wouldn't deserve to have it any other way,_ he answered this annoyingly optimistic little voice. _This is the life I have, and it's never been any different._

"It used to be different, you know," Stefan said slowly, as if he could hear the voice that was currently blaring out in Damon's other mind, if that was even possible given where they supposedly were at the moment. "There were moments when we used to have a common...interest. Someone we would put our lives on the life to save."

"You mean, Katherine?" Damon sneered. "Maybe at one point, yes, but I think that ship went bye-bye when she screwed us both over."

"Not Katherine."

"Then who? _Blondie?_ Sabrina?" Damon suddenly went still. "Elena?"

Stefan nodded. "She was the love of your life... At one point, the love of _our_ lives, if you can believe we fell for the same girl again."

Damon let the glass slip from his fingers.

"No. Not possible," he denied vehemently. "She's dead. She died before I even met her."

"Is that what Sybil has done to you?" Stefan looked incredible. "She's not just taken your relationship away, she's completely rewritten your history."

"Shut up, Stefan. I would... I would know if something that fundamental would've been wiped away from my memory. There would be things that didn't make sense..." Damon trailed off, because suddenly everything that didn't make sense before made sense. Or at least, he knew the reason why it didn't make sense.

He could no longer put on a front that he didn't care, because he felt every emotion vibrate through him from fear to anger to confusion to even more anger, until he reached a point where he threw the entire bottle of Bourbon into the fire.

"Get out, just GET OUT!" he suddenly roared, and he wasn't sure who he was really talking to anymore: Stefan or Sybil.

All he knew was that memories he could recall had been twisted in a way that hadn't altered the timeline of his life, which logistically speaking should've happened following the amendment of a critical detail, and that right now his humanity switch was on the fritz, with the two sides of his nature both fighting between finding the answers he needed, to just getting the hell out of this nightmare and retreating somewhere far away from his meddling friends.

Only, how had they even become his friends in the first place? He didn't make a habit of being anybody's friend; in the days before he'd returned home, the few and far between friends he'd made had existed in his life either due to the fact the circumstances had dictated they become friends, or because he simply needed them in that time for a particular purpose and then they'd just continued to be a useful ally after that. Even as a human, he'd never bonded with other people the same way Stefan could, mostly because he found that the people he'd lived amongst were either dreadful bores, or pretentious narcissists, sometimes both.

When he next looked around, Stefan had gone.

Damon fell to his knees, more lost than he'd ever been before.

 _Help,_ he pleaded, but there was no one to hear his plea, and no one he'd particularly aimed this to anyway.

It was an age old battle between his head and his heart as to what he needed to do next.

For one, secret, selfish moment, he allowed himself to black out.

Maybe when he woke up, one way or another, he would have the answers he needed.

*x*x*x

He awoke to something softly caressing his hair. When his hand leapt to find the source, it tangled with another hand, one with soft, reassuring fingers that went from caressing his hair to squeezing his flesh.

He opened his eyes and saw Katherine, but there was nothing about her that screamed it was the same Katherine he knew. Her mouth, which always used to keep a smirk tucked away for smart ass remark she made, didn't seem to be the same mouth he'd once kissed the blood off. Instead of a smirk, a gentle smile graced her features, and her eyes were warm, and flooded with affection, something he'd never seen from Katherine, even in their glory days.

She was wearing a lilac dress, and her hair had been straightened - again, as far from Katherine as you could've got - and most importantly she looked as if she'd loved him for a thousand years and would love him for a thousand more.

Damon didn't flinch but he suddenly felt a million barriers erect themselves around his heart, because this was unfamiliar territory.

And yet at the same time it wasn't.

"Hi," she spoke, and she had a lovely lilt to her voice that had never been present in Katherine's voice.

"Katherine?" he felt the need to say, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary, despite the fact the moment the name crossed his lips it felt like he would've made a better first impression if he'd simply sewn his mouth shut.

"Stefan warned me you might say that." She was all smiles and grace, and she kept caressing his hair, making him realise he'd somehow ended up across her lap, lying in the middle of the road, the road where it had all began. "He also said you'd been through a rough time and that you might not know how to react to me."

He rose fluently to his feet, and she did the same, and he drank her all in.

She was beautiful, and graceful, and a million different things he didn't know how to quite describe, until one particular word crept into his mind.

 _Familiar._

"You're Elena," he said matter-of-factly, but there was still a hint of doubt in his voice, because after all you could never fully trust what people said.

"What gave it away?" she asked, coy in a way that Katherine could never have been. She had a playful smirk that could hook a man in every damn time, and that _voice..._ It was almost erotica to the ears.

"I - " for once he was lost for words. "- I don't know what you want me to say. I don't remember you."

 _But I want to. More than I've ever wanted to remember anything ever._

"So don't say anything." Her smirk deepened. "I tend to find you don't put your foot in your mouth that way." She took the bold action of cupping his face... and he took the bold action of letting her. "I've missed you, more than I can ever tell you." Suddenly the smile slid off her face, and sadness washed over her expression. "It's kind of lonely being stuck in your own head."

"This isn't real," he realised. Then, with a pained expression, he tentatively asked, "Are you dead?"

"No," Elena replied softly.

He couldn't deny the relief that swept through him at hearing that.

He may not have remembered her, but he knew instinctively she was a light the world wouldn't dare snuff out.

"But there's a reason you're not in my life right now, right?"

"Yes."

Damon nodded, leaving it at that. He didn't want to know the particulars of why this mysterious and gorgeous stranger was no longer in his life. If she wasn't dead, she was most likely not around because he'd pushed her away, because that was what he was good at - pushing people away.

He wanted to not care, to sit beside her and feel nothing. It would be so easier, not just for himself but also for her. If he had this memory to hold on to, it would only be another way for Sybil to manipulate him and destroy him. He wasn't ready to let go of sanity again. Madness was only beautiful if you divulged in it and came out the other side with a few good stories, not when you were forced into it kicking and screaming, with blood dripping from your mouth.

When had he lost the lust for being downright cruel?

Another mystery to ponder.

"Where are you right now?" he asked, an innocent enough question, devoid of any true emotion or intention.

"Somewhere safe. And that is all you need to know," Elena said, smiling. "It's not that I don't trust you. I just don't trust what other people will do with that information, the monster they'll make you become in order to save me." She began to walk away, her hips sashaying flirtatiously in the moonlight.

"Where are you going?" he asked, suddenly desperate, latching onto her hand, well aware if he didn't make her stay, the darkness would beckon, and he would be gone.

"I'm limited to how long I can stay," Elena explained. "The thing is, you've spent all this time believing people have been invading your mind when the truth is... you're actually invading mine." She smiled again, and he wondered how she could keep smiling like that when she was looking at a monster beyond all redemption. He wondered how a smile like hers could drench him in a warmth he never knew existed, how even without knowing her he was falling for her. "I'm like you, Damon. I'm alone as well. The difference between us is I have hope that I'll get out of my prison, and that you'll find a way out of yours. It's kind of been our thing, the whole _us against the universe_ thing."

"I'm really in your mind?" Damon was incredulous. "Why?"

"Because the thing is, Damon, the plan your brother and our friends concocted to try and win you back rested on you needing a reason for you fighting to come home. You needed memories to remind you of what you were holding on for, but with your mind... altered, they thought it might not work, that if they projected the memories, as they really were, into your mind it could end up pushing you away. They figured the best way to get you on the path to remembering was to give you pieces of your past without me in them, see if you could work it out." She gave a flippant shrug before adding, "On the whole, I'd say it was a terrible plan. It's kind of like having a jigsaw and having only the background pieces to work from, and without having the picture on the box to know what you're working towards."

"Terrible analogy. I don't do jigsaws," Damon smirked.

Elena laughed. "I know," she replied cheekily, "but the terrible analogy was worth it to hear one of your snarky remarks." She then sighed, the laughter draining from her face, and he hated how even though it was easy to make her laugh, there was a lot of pain in her life, a lot of loneliness, that meant she could become guarded again at the flip of a switch. "I have to go, Damon."

"Really?" Damon's voice suddenly chipped at the edges, as if he was on the edge of shattering. "Because seems to me you're the ace card they should've played at the very first hand. You're the only damn thing that makes any sense anymore, and it kills me I don't know why." He pulled her close to him, taking in every tiny mole, freckle, and dimple on her face, wondering if this would be something he'd wake up and remember, or if this was doomed to disappear as well. "Stay. Please."

Her breathing hitched slightly, as if she was holding in a sob, and she wrapped her arms carefully around him, as if aware that right now he was as fragile as snow.

It came to him then, as he buried his face in her hair, his arms wrapped around her slender waist, the realisation that he'd held her this way before, on this same stretch of road, in the same precious corner of her mind; he'd held her with all the intensity of someone who never wants to say goodbye.

He knew undoubtedly in this moment he'd loved her, and for some unfathomable reason she'd loved him. In time, they would defeat Sybil, and his memories would return, but it was enough, just in this moment, to know he'd been loved.

In some hazy, long abandoned crevice inside his body, he could've sworn he'd felt a tremor of movement that could've almost passed for a heartbeat.

Damon might not have cared much for the lectures his friends had given him, and they might not have really resonated with him, and there was a chance - a very dark one - that he might never remember Elena again, and that Sybil would never be defeated, and he would be left with the crushing realisation that he was doomed to be alone, doomed to be a monster who ate pretty girls up for breakfast instead of planning a life with one who'd looked past the madness to see the human within.

But all the same, it was almost worth all the pain, the heartache, the bitterness he'd both caused and drowned himself in for him in that one split second to remember the feeling of falling recklessly in love.

And when Elena span away from him, smiling - _always smiling, like she'd never known pain_ \- he let her go, feeling both calm and resolute.

He would find her again, one way or another.

It didn't matter where their paths had crossed, or where their love had come from. All that mattered was that their paths kept crossing, no matter where or when they were, no matter what memories lived and what memories died; no matter how dark or light their souls were, he knew one thing for certain.

Someday, he was going to find forever with that girl.

* * *

A/N: This might be super cheesy, or it might be my best one-shot yet. You decide :p Hope you enjoyed reading. I'm not caught up on the last 3 episodes of season 8 but I kind of like the mythology of this season, if nothing else. And there's plenty of angst abound, which I kind of thrive on. Anyway please review if you liked this. I will update my work-in-progress fics at some point - huge writer's block in that area, apologies for the delay - in the meantime I hope you have had a very happy new year so far and hope you had an amazing holiday season.


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